2 steps at a time please

2 STEPS AT A TIME, PLEASE
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
September 12, 2011
On BBC, I’ve just heard an international plea that if women from the global south get cell phones, fewer of them and their children will die. Are we doing “those people” a favor? Will mothers and children be guaranteed the care that keeping them alive obliges us? I am frustrated that we consider only what will save lives in the moment without taking into account apparent consequences of our actions. If pregnant women in the global south (my mother and hence myself are rooted in the US south) and their children survive, who has planned to take care of this wave of children and their care for their parents in emerging generations? We advise and work on how to transform each other’s lives one step at a time. Suppose we take one step further at any political moment? Taking a step further in aggressive action is based in all the right rhetorical distinctions, from good and evil to care and callousness. I feel responsible for calculating the next step of any action in which I participate. CIA-speak for this phenomenon is now called pushback. Let’s think 2 steps before we socially engineer. I think we’re grown up enough to be personally and corporately accountable for calculating pushback when we push. Speaking as an American, may you in Afghanistan forgive us for dropping cluster bombs in your fields among your children as a way of dealing with the phenomenon now known as 9/11. As a US citizen, I apologize for the prevailing US reaction. It doesn’t represent me and many others. Love and peace, hal